Bill Halverson

Legendary Producer, Engineer, Arranger

Bill Halverson started his music career in 1955 age 13 playing trombone in a party scene on the Danny Thomas show.

Loading the player ...

In 1961 Bill started playing in big bands led by Allen Ferguson and Tex Beneke. Around the same time, he began working with the legendary Wally Heider as an assistant on remote recording projects. These occasional gigs turned into a steady job by the fall of '64, allowing Bill to learn invaluable skills from Heider on live dates at L.A. area clubs and as a second engineer at Heider’s Hollywood recording studio.

One of the first studio sessions Bill witnessed was studio singers doing radio station ID's. (click audio link)

This triggered his obsession to learn audio recording. His credits during this time included work with the Beach Boys and at the 1967 Monterey Pop Festival (where he recorded Ravi Shankar).
Johnny Cash’s Live at Folsom Prison was among the historic recording sessions he assisted in. After years of apprenticeship, Halverson began to receive engineering credits on albums by such famed artists as Chuck Berry, Jimi Hendrix and Joe Cocker. Halverson’s work as a live engineer on Cream’s 1968 album Wheels of Fire proved to be a turning point in his career. Later that year, Bill engineered the final Cream album (Goodbye) including this unreleased live version (from San Diego) of "Sitting On Top Of The World". (click audio link)

He advanced further by engineering the debut album by Crosby, Stills and Nash in early '69. Halverson’s methods for recording CS&N’s vocals and guitars contributed to the album’s massive success and became highly influential. He continued to work with Crosby, Stills and Nash (and Young) in various combinations, engineering and/or co-producing Déjà vu, 4-Way Street, Stephen Stills I and II andNash/Crosby in 1970-72.

Eric Clapton’s solo debut was another engineering credit. The 1970s saw Halverson active as a producer as well as an engineer. REO Speedwagon, Roger McGuinn, America, Batdorf & Rodney and 2 unreleased Eagles tunes were among his production credits during this time. Though L.A. remained his home base, projects with Jack Bruce, Bad Company, Alvin Lee and others took him to England as well. A stint in Cincinnati found him working with the country rock band Highwind (featuring Rick Fox).

1979 found Bill living and working out of the Cincinnati area. In 1980 he began his ongoing association as a guest lecturer at the Recording Workshop in Chillicothe, Ohio. The early '80's involved engineering albums for producer Joel Diamond in L.A., N.Y. and Nashville. In 1985 Halverson relocated to Nashville and established himself as a producer/engineer in the country market, working with such hit-making artists as the Texas Tornados, Flaco Jimenez and Jo-el Sonnier.